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Review: ONLY FOR YOU – E.L Todd

ONLY FOR YOU By E.L. TODD
Release Date: November 15th 2013SynopsisWhen Scarlet realized Penelope was dumping Sean, her best friend, she was devastated. Penelope was the love of his life, the woman of his dreams. Scarlet knew how far her best friend was going to fall and she had to catch him. Scarlet became Sean’s rock and helped him through a very painful breakup, but her own hidden desires bubbled to the surface in the process. When they finally gave in and slept together, she thought it was the start of their new relationship. Unfortunately, Sean didn’t feel the same.

Humiliated and heartbroken, Scarlet moved across the country and found what she least expected. She rekindled her damaged relationship with her brother, who she hadn’t spoken to in a year, and her brother’s best friend was attractive and interesting. Their relationship was natural and unforced, and she was immediately drawn to him. Would she be able to get over Sean, forget about him, by sleeping with Cortland, or would that just be another repeated mistake?……………………………..

REVIEW

*ARC Provided by the Author

Only For You tells the story of Scarlett Reese, a feisty and independent young woman, living in New York with her best friend and confidant, Sean. When Sean’s life is turned upside down after his soon to be fiancé breaks his heart, Scarlett is there to pick up the pieces and numb his pain. But when they begin spending every waking moment of their free time together, the lines of their platonic relationship start to blur. One night their attraction for one another becomes too strong to deny. But their one night stand changes everything about their relationship the next day. Their once strong bond is irreparably shifted. Will Sean realise the girl who has always been there for him, might actually be the one?

What I loved about Only For You was that E.L Todd does not just merely describe certain pivotal situations, but actually places you right in the thick of them. This truly allows the reader to gain perspective on what Scarlett and Sean are both faced with. I like that Sean’s ex-girlfriend, Penelope was introduced in the beginning and we got to see firsthand the way in which she felt about her relationship. This made it a lot easier and more heartbreaking to understand Sean’s emotions and the disheartening element of this book.

Scarlett is an interesting heroine and imbues the qualities I usually adore in a female protagonist. She is strong, fiercely determined and self sufficient. She truly holds Sean together and pieces the fragmented parts of his heart back together. Her love for him truly runs deep within her veins and you feel that, her devotion to him was beautiful. For every moment that I loved her strength though, she certainly had her fair share of painfully frustrating moments that balanced it out. There were moments where her decision making was simply poor, but the author allows you to empathise with her situation to an extent.

Sean. Oh Sean. I do not even know where to begin describing the hero of this story. Initially my heart was completely broken for him and the heartache he suffered through. As the story unfolded, his pain was clearly depicted through his actions. Some of his actions were however, disturbing in the sense that it almost felt as though he was drowning in a sea of pure melancholy, and it was this same sadness that consumed him that made it appear like he would not find his way out of it. I felt like the love he had for Penelope was the great ‘all-consuming, gut-wrenching, once-in-a-lifetime-love’. The issue with this is that it did not appear that those same feelings correlate to his relationship with Scarlett. The decisions he made were atrocious and left me incredibly conflicted as to if I was actually on his side a lot of the time where Scarlett was concerned. Of course this is the first book in the series and I definitely want to see where E.L Todd is going to take these two characters and hopefully explore their relationship in greater depth.

The biggest issue for me truly loving and connecting to this story was the morality of Sean and Scarlett and every character within Only For You – with the exception of Ryan (Scarlett’s gorgeous older brother). The decisions they made and their justification for them, at times was simply infuriating! Without giving any spoilers away, in all honesty I do not mind gritty love stories that explore the tumultuous events, but the lines between right and wrong, justified and unjustified were crossed a lot.

My favourite character within this book was Scarlett’s brother, Ryan. Ryan, even though he is a secondary character, completely and utterly stole my heart. He is such a gorgeous, gentle and very sentimental guy. Scarlet’s relationship with him is described as being tattered and I loved that they were able to repair whatever damage had been done. I truly hope Ryan will get his own story!

Only For You is certainly a book that left me with strongly conflicting emotions. I truly wanted to love it. I wanted to see Scarlett and Sean fight harder for one another. I wanted to feel like they were consumed with love, devotion and loyalty for each other. But in all honesty I was not left feeling this way. I just wish their feelings were explored more thoroughly – especially their realisation of the slow and gradual development of their love and ultimately their relationship.

I am looking forward to what tumultuous events E.L Todd will explore for these characters.